


Episode 18 - No More

by stgjr



Series: "The Power of a Name" Series 2 - "Time Lord Triumphant" [27]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Multi-Fandom, Star Trek
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Multiple Crossovers, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-25 22:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stgjr/pseuds/stgjr
Summary: With his emotions at a fever pitch of anger, frustration, and grief, our narrator tries to save a Federation colony from a historical disaster that will kill thousands... and sets up a fateful encounter with one of his most intractable foes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on October 7th, 2014.

Time travel can be tricky. There are so many rules, so many guidelines, dictating what the traveler can safely do and what he cannot. These rules and guidelines were wrapped together and made into the Laws of Time, the code of conduct for all Time Lords.  
  
It can be hard to reconcile this with wanting to help people. Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes those bad things are necessary. Deadly incidents that lead to necessary reforms. Fights that end the life of beings who would have caused great suffering if they had lived on. That sort of thing. Because of this, short-term positive intervention in a timeline can lead to negative consequences in the long term. It takes care, wisdom, to change events. You have to be willing to make sure your changes haven't caused more harm than good. And the effects of a change can be exponential, so the bigger the change you make, the more that can go wrong. The more work you must take up. The more possibilities you must consider. At some point, it can get too much for even a Time Lord.  
  
So you must balance altruism with realization of your own limits. Physical limits, mental, even spiritual. It helps to have someone close to you provide an anchor. An alternative viewpoint to keep you honest and thinking. To make you see when you're losing control.  
  
I no longer had that.  
  
It's not like I dove from the cliff into insane changing of the timeline, mind you. It came gradually. Saving the Air Nomads, thwarting the Catalyst so that Commander Shepard had her victory, that started it. That fed my appetite for saving entire civilizations. Losing Janias and Camilla had deprived me of the Companions who had seen me at what had been my lowest point, Companions who knew I was fallible and on whom I could depend on honest dissent from.  
  
Then Katherine came. Poor, brilliant Katherine. I was her hero. I was the Doctor, the man from the magic box who stopped someone from shooting her as a child and who had pledged to her to show her all the wonders of Creation if she was a Good Girl. And so we had. But where Jan and Cami had tried to restrain me, Katherine just as often did the exact opposite. She wanted to help people too.  
  
And so we did. My victories continued.  
  
And then she died.  
  
Fury, grief, loss, all of it was bad enough. Then the hope that was dangled before me on getting her back just for it to be dashed. After all of my victories, all of my triumphs, I was defeated.  
  
Frustration was now added to the toxic blend of ego, hubris, and arrogance that had begun to swell within me. And in that state, I ignored the pleading of a good friend to reconsider my decisions.  
  
And so nobody would be there to keep me from giving in to my worst enemy.  
  
Myself.  
  
  
  
  
I traveled to travel. Constantly moving, helping where I could, struggling with the issue of how much I could or should do. In this case, I directed the TARDIS to Dromund Kass, intending to help out some poor people kept as slaves on the Sith homeworld and to do a little... creative editing of Sith Imperial broadcasting.  
  
But when I stepped out, I wasn't greeted by perpetual Dark Side-fueled thunderstorms under a dark cloudy sky. I looked up to see the outlines of a biodome of transparent aluminium, crossed with a web of light gray support structure. My eyes settled down on the horizon. Outside of the dome was a planet with a dark red atmosphere. A distant volcano thundered on the horizon.  
  
I realized the TARDIS had materialized on the top of a structure in this massive dome. Not a very tall structure, mind you, as I looked around and saw some modest skyscraper-sized buildings about. I looked down into the streets milling with anti-grav bikes and pedestrians wearing futuristic-looking jumpsuits. At least most of them were. Others were in maroon jackets with black trim and gray, gold, or white clips over the left shoulder, matched with black pants, similarly-color coded shirts beneath the jackets.  
  
Starfleet uniforms. The ones from the 2280s to 2340s.  
  
"Where am I?", I mused aloud. "When?"  
  
Before I could investigate more the ground shook beneath me. People in the streets cried out in surprise. I fell back into the TARDIS door until the shaking subsided enough for me to get back up. I looked back over the horizon.  
  
The volcano had exploded. Gushing mounts of orange and yellow light now erupted from where the top had been smoldering before. It was somewhat eerily beautiful, if quite terrible to behold.  
  
I racked my mind to think of any case I personally knew of this event. It wasn't familiar. I went to the TARDIS controls and the display screen, checking my coordinate data for the date and time. "Stardate 22622," I murmured. "Sometime in... 2345? The Glicken Colony on Pyrovia...." I stared in horror at the record I read.  
  
The volcano's detonation was just the first blast. Pressure was even now building beneath the colony for a powerful aftershock that badly-installed sensors missed the signs toward. The aftershock would spew melting rocks and some lava into the colony and weaken the dome... critically. The entire colony would be destroyed in the dome collapse before any evacuations could begin.  
  
"Fifty thousand people," I breathed, looking at the population figure of 50,291 residents and support personnel. And then I spied the survivor list.  
  
Thirty-one.  
  
_Thirty-one_.  
  
Over fifty-thousand people were about to die. All because some fool didn't check the sensors right.  
  
I couldn't allow that to happen.  
  
I _wouldn't_ allow that to happen.  
  
  
  
  
I moved the TARDIS somewhere quiet before getting to work. I only had a few hours to act, so I moved at a brisk pace, using the psychic paper and the sonic screwdriver to get into doors I needed to use.  
  
From the records, two Starfleet vessels were near enough to help. But they would be called in too late due to the sensor failure. The solution, thus, was twofold.  
  
I used the sonic to slip into an office for one of the functionaries. I ignored the various mementos to family and friends and past that the occupant had, noting them only enough to see the person was an Andorian, and went to the computer on the desk. The sonic whirred happily as I ran it over the system, tapping in commands with the other hand when I had to. The computer security was not very tight. Glicken was not a highly strategic facility demanding such.  
  
Thanks to that, I quickly worked through the security systems and sent out the distress call on all frequencies. A moment later and the comm dish was locked into that call, protected from override.  
  
That left the sensor.  
  
As I raised myself to my full height the door swished open. An Andorian of one of the female genders entered in a civilian jumpsuit. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. "Who are you and what are you doing in my office?"  
  
"Me?" I held up the psychic paper. "Doctor Smith, Federation Science Council investigator. I received reports of faulty installation in Glicken's sensor and communications systems. I... believe I came to the wrong office."  
  
"They actually let you enter offices without permission?', the Andorian demanded.  
  
"In a critical enough situation, yes. You've got a volcano exploding less than ten kilometers away and I was sent to double-check the functioning of your underground warning sensors."  
  
The woman's face hardened. Not in anger but from controlled fear. The colony in question had been placed as safely as possible, but since its entire purpose was to mine local rare minerals and to do scientific monitoring of the volcanoes of the planet, it was understandably still in a precarious, potentially dangerous position. The large-scale people-moving transporters for evacuation to the orbiting space station were there for this purpose.  
  
Of course, their use was predicated on warning time. Which the faulty sensor was taking away.  
  
She found her voice. "I... I can't authorize you access to those, sir. You'll have to talk to Commander Legsh and Director Sturek."  
  
"Of course, of course," I said, walking around the desk. "Please, take me to central operations."  
  
I had inwardly cursed at being found. It seemed far easier to get in and out without being seen, fix the sensor, and let the evacuation happen. But now I had a chance to make sure of things. By showing the heads of the colony that their sensor was malfunctioning, they would begin emergency evacuation as a precaution, at an earlier time-scale and without the tricky issue of the fault possibly being in the physical sensor and not the operating systems.  
  
The central operations center for the colony looked like a starship bridge, almost. Blue paneled LCARs controls were on several stations and along walls. Diagrams of the volcano, the planet, and the mining tables beneath Glicken were on several. "Commander, Director, this is Doctor Smith from the Science Council," my guide said, ignoring another small rumble in the ground. In the distance the volcano threw off more lava.  
  
A Tellarite in the maroon uniform of Starfleet and a Vulcan man in a black and brown set of robes turned to face me. "Doctor Smith? I am Director Sturek. I was... not informed that the Science Council was sending anyone out?"  
  
"Oh, last minute change of orders," I said. "There has been some concern about the seismic sensor installation for Glicken. I've come to double-check them." I peered out at the erupting volcano. "And not too soon, I see. Given the nature of the fault lines here that eruption could come right under this colony."  
  
"There is only a one percent chance of that," Sturek pointed out. "And I am confident in our sensor systems' efficacy to give us warning time."  
  
"And if you're wrong, you've got what, two transports before the colony is destroyed?", I asked pointedly. "That's fifty thousand dead. I don't think you want that, do you? Let's inspect them together. You can decide the best course of action then."  
  
The Tellarite, Commander Legsh, looked at me with some suspicion. He went to another station and spoke quietly while Sturek led me to a panel. He typed in commands. "These sensors are subjected to hourly diagnostics. We have had no trouble."  
  
"You know as well as I that a diagnostic doesn't find all faults. Improper installation and connection failures can be missed by standard diagnostics. When was the last time you ran a high level diagnostic?"  
  
Sturek considered me quietly. "As frequently as regulations require. In this case, one month."  
  
"Ah. A rather... lax schedule, you must admit," I said.  
  
"High level diagnostics require taking the system offline and putting in backup systems, Doctor, it is not something easily done."  
  
"Well." I frowned. "I suggest we do it."  
  
Sturek showed no emotion visibly, but there was some irritation in his eyes. "That is not logical. It will take two hours to get supplementary systems in place."  
  
"Two hours? _Two bloody hours_?", I answered. "That should only take half an hour at most with proper training, Director."  
  
"Resources for such training are not a logical expense for such a purpose," Sturek insisted. "These sensor systems are the latest development in the Federation, as you well know."  
  
I sighed and raised my head to look upward. "You've got fifty thousand people living on a volcanic, geologically unstable planet and you're _cutting corners_ because systems are new?!", I thundered. "You should know better, Director Sturek! Attitudes like that are what disasters are made of!"  
  
"I have taken every necessary precaution." Sturek narrowed his eyes. "Your emotional outburst is entirely unbecoming a scientist."  
  
"My emotional outburst is because we're sitting on a ticking time bomb and..."  
  
The door swished open and two Starfleet officers entered. In body armor, with phasers in their hands.  
  
Oh dear.  
  
Commander Legsh stepped up beside them. "Director Sturek, step away please," he said .  
  
Sturek noticed the armed men and actually frowned. "Commander, what is the meaning of this?"  
  
"Him." Legsh pointed at me. "I just ran his image through Starfleet databases and checked our internal sensors. This man isn't Human, and he certainly isn't from the Science Council. He's a time criminal called the Doctor, and under Standing Order 30 I am placing him under arrest."  
  
I sighed. "We haven't got time for this!", I insisted.  
  
Sturek looked to me. His eyes grew more intense as he ran the information in his head. "If you are a time traveler and you have come here..."  
  
I looked to him. A small smirk crossed my face. "Ah. Enlightenment, I see? Yes. Sometimes one in a hundred happens, Director. This colony will be destroyed within hours when your sensors fail to register the buildup in pressure underneath. The blast will blast through your dome and cause it to collapse. Thirty one people will survive."  
  
Sturek paled at my revelation. Legsh waved at his security officers, who brought their phasers up. "Come with us," he ordered.  
  
I rolled my eyes in contempt. "You lot are so dogmatic about it. I just told you fifty thousand people are going to die, Commander!" I raised my voice, making damn sure everyone here heard that. "Thirty one people from this entire colony survive! Out of over fifty thousand! I'm here to stop it and you're going to brandish phasers at me?!"  
  
The security guards visibly stiffened. Legsh took a moment to compose himself. "This is a violation of the Temporal Prime Directive, sir," he finally said. "You.. you don't know what the consequences can be if you change our history!"  
  
"I doubt they'll be that bad compared to the _guaranteed consequences_ if I don't!", i retorted. "Are you willing to see fifty thousand Federation citizens die for the Temporal Prime Directive, Commander?"  
  
Legsh's dark eyes focused on me. The Tellarite curled his face in an expression of sheer frustration tinged with uncertainty. I could see him struggling with his decision.  
  
Sturek had a new look on his face. "I will not allow my people to die," he declared. "It is not logical."  
  
"Director..."  
  
"Commander, you are not my overseer," Sturek barked. He looked to me. "Doctor, you seem to have great knowledge of our systems. Do you have any suggestions? We will need time to evacuate."  
  
"Begin immediately."  
  
"The other stations may not have the room for us all," one operator, a Betazoid given her dark pupils, said.  
  
"I've already sent a distress call on your behalf," I said back. "Two Starfleet vessels are on their way. For now you just need to begin evacuation. I'll try to buy you more time."  
  
"You're not going anywhere," Legsh insisted. "By the authority of the Federation you are under arrest for repeated violations of the Temporal..."  
  
Before he could continue I brought the sonic screwdriver up. The phasers in his guards' hands exploded in sparks. They recoiled, dropping the disabled weapons to the ground and favoring the slight burns on their hands. Legsh looked at them in disbelief and then to me. "I have more where that comes from."  
  
"And I'll disable them all if I have to," I countered. "I am here to save you people and this is my thanks? All because I actually have the courage to save lives instead of cowering behind the Prime Directive and its ilk? No, sir. The Federation has no authority over me and the more you try to assert it, the more I will put you down." I gestured toward a control chair. "Now I suggest, Commander, that you get your personnel working on overseeing the evacuation."  
  
"What will you be doing, Doctor?", Sturek asked.  
  
"Trying to find out how to buy you more time," I answered. "Excuse me now, but I must go get a suit. It's going to be boiling outside."  
  
  
  
Environmental suits are not the most pleasant things. Even with Federation technology they're bulky and awkward, filled with life support mechanisms and insulation to protect from extreme temperatures. Like the kind you find on a volcano planet.  
  
The TARDIS hovered outside the dome where I now reviewed the scan results. I'd given up on repairing the sensor; there was no point when I had thoroughly convinced Sturek of what was coming. The key now was to buy time for the evacuation by delaying the eruption.  
  
Hrm. Tricky. But that's part of being a Time Lord.  
  
I gave the TARDIS control a pat. "Well, you brought me here, I'm afraid I'm going to need you to take some bruises, my girl," I murmured. Scans were showing me the lava channels that were forming beneath the surface, on their way to destiny.  
  
Ah, destiny. We don't see eye to eye.  
  
"Here we go! Tally ho!", I shouted as I triggered the TARDIS controls. The TARDIS rushed groundward. Her protective fields reshaped themselves and let her smash through the ground, tunneling through rock until she emerged into the lava stream. Sensors warned of the external conditions.  
  
I think that should explain my suit, shouldn't it? Safety first, kids.  
  
At my control the TARDIS moved through the stream and them back upward, breaking through to the surface again. I brought her back down smashing through the ground, creating a third hole. And then back up. Down and up. Down and up. The rocky terrain began to resemble a form of swiss cheese.  
  
Lava began to softly ooze out of the holes, reaching the surface. "There," I muttered while checking my TARDIS for damage. "Sorry for that girl. Good cause and all." Seeing there was no major damage, I turned my attention to the oozing orange and red fluid pushing out of the holes. That should relieve the pressure for later shocks sufficiently and keep it from breaking through the ground beneath the colony.  
  
I didn't feel it in the TARDIS, but my sensors could sense the savage rumble in the planet as another burst of energy erupted below. The magma began to gush from the holes I'd made, shooting at least thirty feet in the sky and very nearly to my TARDIS. I pulled it up another twenty meters to be safe and looked out at the field below me. The ground was covered in magma now. The high temperature of the planet meant the magma wasn't going to be cooling for days and that it would stay nice and fluid as it flowed freely down the hillside...  
  
...toward the dome.  
  
"Oi! I cannot catch one break!", i shouted. If the lava reached the dome it would start to damage the structure anyway. And if they raised shields to stop it, they wouldn't be able to beam out. Not unless.... ha ha! "Of course!", I shouted as the idea came to my brain. I could alter the shields to be directional, leaving the top of the dome unshielded for transporter signals!  
  
I quickly worked the TARDIS controls and brought her back to the operations center. I was removing my helmet as I stepped out and faced Legsh and Sturek. "I've relieved pressure, but we have a new problem now," I told them.  
  
"We observed," Sturek noted. "Our surveyors did not account for lava flowing from that area."  
  
I said nothing, cursing inwardly. That had been the best spot to relieve pressure, but I'd missed the fact that a substantial lava flow would move toward the colony. "Yes, well, that's why I'm going to alter your shields. We'll leave a gap at the top of the dome for the transporter signal."  
  
One of the Starfleet crew, a Human woman with bright green eyes and the complexion and facial structure of a Central Asian, looked at me with surprise. "Sir, how can you do that? This model isn't made for directional shielding."  
  
"On the fly modifications, my dear Ensign," i answered brightly. "It's something of a hobby of mine. I'll be in the shield generator room if you need anything!"  
  
As I stepped back into the TARDIS, intending to move her directly to that point, I also took a moment to waggle the sonic screwdriver in the vague direction of one of the displays. Enough to, say, turn that display into a bug. I was still suspicious of Legsh trying something. Another reason I was taking the TARDIS with me.  
  
When I got into the shield generator's adjacent control chamber I went to work on it, dragging out a few parts from the TARDIS. At a time like this I found myself missing a Companion to help, but I pushed those thoughts from my mind.  
  
I went to work making my modifications. Altering the emitters was pitifully easy in concept but an annoyance given the design of what was clearly a second-rate civilian shielding system. Given the lack of an underground shield system it was enough to show the problems with Glicken; it was built on a narrow budget and with an overreliance on technology creating too many points of disaster-level failure. The Federation would learn from what happened here today. Fifty thousand dead does that.  
  
Of course, I'd be saving the people, but the failure points would still be seen. The reforms should still go through. They _would_ go through if I had to personally bribe or disagrace half the Federation Council to ensure it. Fifty thousand people shouldn't have to die for common sense to be found.  
  
After meticulous careful alterations to the power distribution systems and the capacitors to handle the changes to power flow from the new emitters, I was ready. I imagine an hour must have passed since I started. No, make that fifty minutes.  
  
"Here we go," I murmured, returning to the controls. I fired the shields up.  
  
The shield generator thrummed to life. I smiled and went to work checking it and making sure the form it was taking was the right one.  
  
And then the first spark came. My eyes widened and I focused on the readings. "No no no no," I grumbled. "No. Oh _come on!_ I thought the Federation was past that 'made by the lowest bidder' nonsense?!", I cried out in frustration.  
  
As it turned out, the shield generator's power grid connection was made of subpar materials. Materials that were never meant to handle the draw being demanded by the generator.  
  
More sparks flew from around the room and the entire generator died.  
  
No wonder this bloody place got destroyed.  
  
Or maybe it was Time itself. I didn't feel any Fixed Points forming, but temporal inertia could still be coming into play. It could still be working to doom the people of this inhabitants.  
  
"Bugger to that," I muttered. "You won't be beating me that easily. You won't!"  
  
I probably sounded a bit unhinged. But perhaps that was the way I felt. One thing I was certain of: I wasn't going to let History condemn fifty thousand without a fight.  
  
Time could be shifted. Fate altered. I'd done it before. I'd do it again.  
  
I was a Time Lord. I was the Doctor.  
  
_Never give up. Never give in._  
  
Possibilities ran through my mind. "Okay, okay... ha! A ha ha ha ha! You won't stop me that easily! Come on then, come on if you think you're hard enough!", I cried out, sounding like an Ankh-Morpork football hooligan as I rushed to the TARDIS. I had some spare power conduits; I'd use the TARDIS _itself_ to power the generator if I had to. It would work, long enough to make the evacuation possible.  
  
As I got to work, I heard my "bug" in the operations center come to life. A transporter pattern had been detected. I looked at my readings and noticed a Federation starship was in orbit. A smaller vessel, not one of the ones I had called in, but the design schematics resembled a _Renassiance_ -class design. Clearly a fast ship with a high warp sprint capability. Just what was it doing.... _oh_.  
  
I brought up the visual aspect of the bug and saw figures in dark uniform, but not Starfleet ones, with Sturek and Legsh. " _...dead on your conscious?_ ", Stuvek asked with barely constrained emotion. I suspected he wasn't the most observant Vulcan.  
  
" _It's not right to just change the timeline..._ ", a young man argued, but the Vulcan with him held a hand up.  
  
" _The timeline has already been contaminated. It is not logical to sacrifice fifty thousand Federation citizens in an attempt to restore it. Our ship will aid your evacuation._ " The Vulcan, a slim woman I could see as she turned slightly, nodded to her junior partner.  
  
" _Thank you, Agent T'Lyr_ ," Stuvek said.  
  
I grimaced. _Of course._ DTI. Bloody time cops.  
  
" _Commander Legsh, we will need your security forces' cooperation. The Doctor is supremely dangerous and will not be easy to apprehend._ "  
  
" _He blew up our phasers in a motion from his device,_ " Legsh grumbled.  
  
" _We will provide countermeasures we have derived against his energy manipulation tools. We should hurry, however, as he may already know we're present._ "  
  
That I did. But I couldn't flee without abandoning Glicken. Without the shields the lava would strike the dome and begin to degrade it in.... twenty minutes.  
  
So I would have to hold off DTI for hours.  
  
Well, I'd do so then. Because I wasn't leaving. And I wasn't letting them take me or my TARDIS.  
  
As I began my own preparations, the young man with Agent T'Lyr turned. My eyes focused on him and narrowed. Oh, that was bloody great, wasn't it?  
  
He was young, early twenties I figured. A rookie agent, clearly. But the hair, the facial expression, of course it would be the same. Consistancy was what he did, after all.  
  
T'Lyr's partner was Agent Gariff Lucsly.  
  
And this would obviously be his first meeting with me.  
  
I smirked. Well, I'd make it one to remember, all right.  
  
If only I'd known just how memorable I'd make it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our narrator strives to save the Glicken Colony from disaster while fighting off the Department of Temporal Investigation, with an outcome that will stay with him forever.

Securing the shield generator control room and access room started by locking the door and sealing it. With the TARDIS I set up an anti-beaming field to guarantee against that angle of attack. I checked the schematics for the area to see where they might blow the wall in. There were few positions of such, at least. But they came in places that, if they came in all at once, they might overwhelm me.  
  
The TARDIS would be my redoubt. It would have to be. I stood by it and the controls, monitoring how the shields were working and the beginning of the evacuation. The lava came ever closer to the dome and the shield now protecting it. I looked to another control panel and tried to re-purpose it to use their security systems. The defenses on those systems were becoming more and more complicated. Of course. They had Starfleet computer security procedures active now to keep me out.  
  
I checked the TARDIS sensors next. I'd relieved the pressure that would be accumulating under the colony but eventually it would become too great despite my efforts. And then _boom_.  
  
On one screen I watched the lava reach the shield. Blue light came to life, acting as a breakwater to hold back the glowing red and yellow of the magma pulsating around it. The air on the monitor wavered from heat.  
  
So far so good. Given time the shield should take enough energy from the laga to begin cooling it back into rock. And all the while the evacuation happened above me.  
  
There was a tone at the door. A voice came through the intercom speaker inside the control and access room. " _I am Agent T'Lyr of Vulcan in service to the Department of Temporal Investigations. I request you surrender to my custody immediately. Resistance will only lead to pointless violence._ "  
  
I held up the sonic screwdriver and used it to remotely key the control panel. "Well hello Agent T'Lyr. I'm trying to recall, have we met? I distinctly remember a voice like your's on Capraxi around, oh, 2310 Earth Calendar and I'm normally good with voices."  
  
There was brief silence. " _I was, yes_ ," she admitted.  
  
"Ah. And what about your partner? Didn't you have a Human partner too? Miss Hamri? Nice lady, handled time travel metaconcepts pretty well as I recall? How is she?"  
  
" _She did, yes. She has retired to raise her family._ "  
  
"Good, good," I breathed as I went around preparing for their eventual entry. "Had to be better than dealing with T'Viss all the time. So, is this the part where I remind DTI I'm a Time Lord and tell you to go away? I admit it's getting a tad old. Plus I'm just here to save lives, really."  
  
" _You are in violation of the Temporal Prime Directive as we speak,_ " T'Lyra answered.  
  
"So it's more important than 50,000 people, is it?"  
  
" _You know the issue of tampering with the timeline is more important than that._ "  
  
"Is this where you try to lecture me about consequences of changing the timeline?", I asked pointedly. "I do so love being lectured at, you know."  
  
There was a pause. " _You are attempting to delay me._ "  
  
"Well, I certainly have my own distaste for violence, so staving it off seemed a good idea," I answered as I got back to the main controls for the shields and monitored them. They were holding well, but I didn't like the look of the feedback into the generator itself. "Can we talk about this _after_ we make sure fifty thousand people aren't going to be killed because this place was apparently built by a Ferengi miser?"  
  
".... _Ferengi?_ "  
  
"Oh, right. Wrong point in time. Silly me." I hit a switch and moved toward a corner. "My point remains. I'm trying to save lives. You're trying to stop me because I'm a dastardly time criminal that makes the universe better. Can you at least wait until we know this place isn't going to be buried under lava?"  
  
My answer was the series of explosions that came from each entry point. T'Lyr and her partner came through the main door alongside Starfleet Security, which poured through the other entrances. Phaser rifles and pistols were leveled at me as I brought my sonic disruptor up. "We are well aware of your capabilities, Doctor," T'Lyr stated calmly. "You are under arrest. Please do not resist. Our weapons have been adapted to your energy manipulation device and cannot be remotely disabled."  
  
"Well, not easily, I agree," I responded flippantly. "But you'll understand if I'm not in a hurry to be stuck in New Zealand for the next few centuries. Wonderful place, normally. Beautiful scenery. But I'm a bit of a wanderer."  
  
"We have you surrounded," T'Lyr reminded me. "You will not be able to summon your craft before we open fire."  
  
I shook my head. "I'm not surrendering."  
  
"Stun him," T'Lyr ordered.  
  
Their phasers fired.  
  
My setting 42 shield caught them, flaring blue against blue. Surprise flashed over T'Lyr's face and disbelief over young Lucsly.  
  
I smirked. "That's me, always with the new tricks."  
  
Another series of beams fired, at higher settings, as they sought to overwhelm my shield. "Doctor, at these settings you will likely die when your shield fails," T'Lyr pointed out. "You will be given a fair trial if you surrender."  
  
"Sorry, I'm not in the habit of being told what I'm allowed to do by stuffy suits," I replied with clenched teeth. My disruptor would be hard-pressed to withstand all of this firepower as their settings went higher. Blue beam after blue beam struck it.  
  
Just as I wanted to have happen.  
  
Frustration appeared like a ghost over the Vulcan woman's face. She looked to be in her thirties... by Human standards of course, since I knew she was actually closer to seventy in actual age, and therefore she was still quite young for a Vulcan professional and didn't quite have the emotional control of someone like Spock. Although she was still better at it than Sturek. She kept up the fire with the others, not ordering any let-up. In other words, she was perfectly willing to _kill me_. That was how much a threat DTI considered me to be.  
  
Needless to say, I'm not much of a fan of attempts to kill me. I like, well, breathing.  
  
With my free hand I brought up the sonic screwdriver and set it to wide arc setting. I pressed the activation key and watched the tip light up with purple and begin whirring.  
  
The whirring filled the room and was promptly joined by sparks. Phasers overloaded and exploded with energy in the form of those sparks, forcing everyone present to drop them. Everyone regarded me with surprise, including T'Lyr and Lucsly.  
  
I smirked. "Ha! See what I mean? I'm a _Time Lord_ and you lot never seem to get it in your thick heads what that means! It means that _I will always beat you_!"  
  
T'Lyr went to her feet and assumed a martial arts stance. "We still have sufficient numbers to subdue you."  
  
" _Had_."  
  
I held up the sonic disruptor and triggered setting 21, wide arc. Everyone present save T'Lyr started to scream and collapse to their knees. T'Lyr staggered and grimaced, clearly trying to resist the effects of the neural disruption.  
  
So was Lucsly, who was proving surprisingly robust.  
  
I brought the sonic screwdriver over toward him and triggered its narrow-focus sonic burst. Lucsly screamed, clasped his ears, and fell to the ground, nearly unconscious.  
  
T'Lyr continued to advance. In fact, she put her hand on my wrist and started to twist to wrench my sonic screwdriver out of my grasp. Vulcan strength was something that I couldn't laugh at, so I moved immediately to prevent her from grappling with me and trying the nerve pinch.  
  
I'm not one for physical combat. Blast things with the sonic disruptor, that was fine. But I don't throw punches, usually. I prefer out-thinking my foes.  
  
In this case, I made an exception.  
  
The sonic disruptor made a slight thunking sound as it slapped into T'Lyr's face. A tooth flew loose, congealed with green blood, and she fell away from me. Her grip on my wrist didn't slacken and helped her stay up. It also provided me leverage, allowing me to grab her wrist as soon as I dropped the sonic from my hand. A savage blow with the disruptor to her left arm was enough to make her grip on my wrist weaken. I wrenched it free with my grip on her remaining and twisted around, using my grip on her wrist to take her into a judo hold and throw her over my shoulder. T'Lyr hit the ground hard, a faint groan escaping through her Vulcan control. If I'd ever learned the neck pinch trick I'd have done it right there. I had to settle for setting 21 knocking her unconscious with a moan of pain.  
  
I surveyed all of the unconscious or near-unconscious security guards and went to the control panel for the shield generator. This time I hacked it into the transporter system. It was being actively used for the evacuation so I made sure to take over only after a transport sequence finished. I beamed up the security guards and T'Lyr in the first batch, the other remaining guards in the second. That left Lucsly...  
  
Before I could transport him, the ground beneath me shook like the entire colony was in the grasp of an enraged god. I fell to my hands and knees and struggled to get back to my feet. "Oh no, not now!", I breathed in irritation.  
  
It was a warning shock. Despite my efforts, the lava flow beneath the colony was approaching critical levels. When the pressure grew powerful enough it would explode.  
  
I thought quickly. No shield I could possibly create with what was at hand could hold such a blast. I couldn't move the TARDIS out without shutting down the directional shield stopping the magma flow around the dome. I needed a new option.  
  
As the ground rumbled beneath me, I knew I needed it _now_. There was no way they could transport enough people... out...  
  
Ha!  
  
I looked down to the controls and hit the intercom. "Sturek, Legsh, I'm going to need the transporters for a few minutes. Tell me you have the mines evacuated!"  
  
" _The mines were emptied of workers first. May I state that giving you transporter control will delay our evacuation?_ ," Sturek pointed out.  
  
"Yes, but as things stand you won't finish it in time. Give me half of your transporter capacity and I can buy us enough time!"  
  
There was silence for a moment. " _Very well._ "  
  
I took control of the relevant transporters and began transporting material around.  
  
Namely, the mining charges and other explosive devices.  
  
With the transporter I brought them to me first and set up their remote detonators with the sonic screwdriver before beaming them back out. My points for them were the mine shafts moving away from the colony. One to block the main entrance hatch with rubble, the rest to blast a hole through to the magma pocket and give the magma somewhere to go.  
  
The ground shook several times beneath me as I went to work. "I see that bad sensor still thinks everything is fine," I muttered as I finished preparations. "Sturek! I'm ready! Everyone brace themselves!" I released the transporters back to him. My hand went to the detonation command and pressed it.  
  
Again the ground shook. Sensor feeds showed how well the blast worked; a cylinder had been forced through the rock, giving the magma somewhere else to escape. It rushed through the new channel and into the underground mines like a freight train. Of flaming rock. Nasty, melt-your-body flaming rock.  
  
The mine complex was large enough to accommodate quite a bit of magma. To help, I made sure one more explosive device had been put over the emergency surface hatch, blasting it open and allowing the magma to escape away from the colony.  
  
There was still shaking beneath us. A massive upswell of lava was going to eventually blast through the floor of the colony. But now it wouldn't do so before the evacuation could complete.  
  
I started to laugh. Every obstacle thrown at me had been thwarted. I had triumphed! I would not be denied. I...  
  
...had to move to avoid getting punched by Lucsly.  
  
The young time agent was on his feet swinging. "You're under arrest!", he shouted.  
  
"I'm a Time Lord, Lucsly. You're not going to beat me with fisticuffs," I pointed out.  
  
He reached for his communicator. Before he could bring it to his mouth I used the sonic screwdriver to cause it to explode in sparks. He gasped and cradled his twice-burnt hand. "Seriously, Lucsly," I said. "I just _saved fifty thousand lives_. And here you are, trying to arrest...!"  
  
He swung at me.  
  
He swung _and connected_.  
  
The blow of his hand caught me by surprise. I underestimated him and I shouldn't have. Now I was on the ground. He jumped on me, trying to get control of my hands. I heard the metal clink of wrist-cuffs being prepared.  
  
Something in me seemed to almost snap. I howled in rage and pulled my body around, thwarting his attempt to lock my wrist. I twisted free and did something quite out of the ordinary for me.  
  
I threw a punch.  
  
The punch caught Lucsly on the left side of his face. His head wheeled away and his eyes glazed over with momentary disorientation. I followed this up with a powerful punch to his gut, making him double over. I snarled and tore the wristcuffs from his grasp. "You have to keep pushing," I rasped at him as I pulled his wrists together. "Always bloody pushing!"  
  
"You're... a danger to everything," Lucsly protested. My grip was too strong for him and he wasn't able to break away before his wrists were secured behind his back with a satisfying click. "You change history on a whim. Who knows how much damage you've done..."  
  
"Damage? _Damage_?!" I gestured around us. "Do you call fifty thousand people alive _damage_ , Lucsly?! I call it a good deed!"  
  
"You won't always be saving lives when you do these things," Lucsly pointed out. "You can't change the timeline and expect there to be no consequences!"  
  
"I know exactly what consequences can be. But I'm not letting it scare me into doing nothing!" I went back to the controls and focused on them. So far so good. The tremor was less pronounced now that the magma had somewhere to flow out of the pocket. Altogether I had bought many hours for the evacuation, more than enough.  
  
Lucsly was not dissuaded. Behind me he raged. "Nobody has the wisdom to play with the timelines! Even if you're trying to do something good... the damage you could do is simply too great! You're making decisions for billions of sentient beings, Doctor! _You don't have that right!_ "  
  
And at that point, something snapped in my mind.  
  
"I... don't have the right?" I turned slowly to face him. " _I_ don't have the _right_? Do you know what I am, Lucsly? Do you know what I've done?! I've stopped genocides and wars that would have destroyed entire civilizations! I've saved galaxies! _And you say I don't have the **right**?!_ " I stabbed a finger at him. "You of all people? A small mind serving the small-minded. People _afraid_ of the responsibility of making the world a better place! Afraid of _consequences_. So you set up your neat little guide posts, your precious Prime Directives, and you confine yourself to them never imagining what it would mean to step beyond them, to see what you could accomplish!"  
  
I started to laugh. In one terrifying moment everything suddenly seemed so clear. What I had to do. What I should do. What I should be.  
  
"Do you know who has the 'right' to change history, Lucsly? _I do._ I've _earned it_ , time and time again!", I shouted. "I wish I'd realized it sooner. But I had to be like you. I had to be _afraid_ , afraid of consequences. And it's cost me." Thoughts of Katherine's fate came to me. "It's cost me so dearly. No more." I shook my head. My face twisted with anger. " _ **No more!** I will change what I deem fit! The timelines will bend to **me**. I will save the people who would be lost otherwise! And I will make things better!_ "  
  
Lucsly looked at me with widened, horrified eyes. Here I was, the antithesis of everything he stood for. The man who would bend all of time to his will.  
  
At that moment I didn't care. I laughed loudly, openly, as if a weight had come off my shoulders. Everything was so _clear_ now. No more doubt. No more fear of what might go wrong. I would do what I thought was right, and the consequences? I'd deal with them as needed. I would _make_ things go the way I intended, the way I desired. There would be no more Katherines. I would _save everyone_.  
  
The feeling was... breath-taking. _Intoxicating_.  
  
I held my arms up. "You wanted to know who I was to claim such power, Agent Lucsly?! I'll tell you! _I am the Doctor._ I am a _Time Lord_! That's not just a fancy title, it's _what I am_. I see the flows of History like you would see the flowing of a stream! Time moves through me like the blood of your veins! I will not be lectured by an arrogant little man who fears change! You're so afraid of what could happen that you don't think about what _should_ happen. But I do! I know what should happen! And I won't stand by and ignore that like you would. I will not be ruled by fear any longer! The Laws of Time are _mine. To. **Command!**_ _They will obey ME._ And with that power, I can do whatever is necessary to make everything better! I will save people! I will not lose anyone else! And no matter what stands in my way, _I will be triumphant!_ "  
  
I laughed. I laughed like I'd just said something amusing. Something uproariously funny. I remember my thoughts being chaotic. I felt _liberated_. I wouldn't be afraid anymore. I'd do what was right, I'd do what was necessary!  
  
There would be no more Katherines. No more Jans and Camis. No more sacrifices.  
  
 _ **No more!**_  
  
My good intentions melded with my arrogance, my growing ego, and sent my thoughts spinning. This led me to something of a terrible epiphany. A moment of clarity of what I had become.  
  
"I'm not just a Time Lord anymore." I shook my head. "I've become something more. So much _more_."  
  
And words that had been said to me before came to my mind then, stark in all of their terrifying glory.  
  
The perfect phrase to sum up what I now saw myself as. The... thing I had become.  
  
I laughed again. And I smiled with the laughter.  
  
" _I am the Time Lord **Triumphant**._ "  
  
Lucsly tried to struggle to his feet. "I'll stop you," he vowed. "I won't let you tear history apart!"  
  
"You'll _try_ , little man," I answered, my smile not fading. "And you'll _fail_."  
  
And with that, I held up the sonic disruptor and knocked him unconscious with Setting 21.  
  
My head was spinning from my newfound sense of purpose, of liberation. I checked the magma flow around the dome. The energy shield I'd rigged had already taken enough eat from the magma in direct contact with it to harden it back into solid rock. A breakwater of said volcanic rock was now several feet tall, more than enough to absorb the flowing magma and channel it around the dome.  
  
I gave a look to other systems. The evacuation was proceeding swiftly. Another starship was already in orbit; altogether dozens of people were being transported out every second. In a couple of hours the evacuation would be complete.  
  
I looked over to Lucsly's unconscious form. As soon as I left, he would be beamed up. I considered how much irritation he caused me when he was older and I was younger, but even at the dizzying heights of the power I now believed in wielding I knew better than to undermine my own timestream. I'd leave him here to wallow in his impotence against me and the power at my command. My younger self would learn to be irritated at him; I didn't even feel that now. I felt... not pity, but a sort of overbearing smug satisfaction in how small and insignificant a being Lucsly was compared to me and my ambitions. To think that he believed himself the guardian of the timeline. What petty _arrogance_.  
  
The timeline was overrated. What mattered was making things better. And that was what I would do. I would _fix_ things. For Katherine. For everyone. And the timeline?  
  
The timeline could be damned.  
  
I detached the cables that had allowed the TARDIS to power the shield generator. It died in a moment and the shield outside dropped. No lava could get over the dried rock that had formed around the shield wall, as I had anticipated. The dome was safe for now. It was safe for long enough.  
  
I had done it.  
  
I had won.  
  
I had _triumphed_.  
  
I stayed to make sure of course, observing in the TARDIS under stealth as the evacuation completed. Lucsly and DTI would sting at this defeat. I smirked at that. I'd make them sting a lot more of they gave me reason to.  
  
But only if that. I had more important things to do. Plans were already stirring in my head on what I would do next.  
  
I was the Doctor.  
  
I was the Time Lord Triumphant.  
  
And all of the timelines of all of the cosmoses were _mine_ to change. **_For the better_**  
  
I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought my prior deeds had made clear my right to change things that I felt needed changing. There were galaxies to save, civilizations to liberate or bring low. Imperial Inquisitors, Sith, Borg, oh so many forces that I was no longer going to turn a blind eye toward.  
  
I was going to ruin them.  
  
I was going to make the Multiverse a better place.  
  
 _No matter the cost_.  
  



End file.
